Events from Advent to Christmas
Advent and Christmas Carols
During Advent (like it’s sister season, Lent) the music at the Cathedral changes in tone. Advent is a season of preparation, as the church awaits the coming of Christmas, and the music selected reflects this.
This Sunday 27th November at 6pm is our annual Advent Carols service. A smaller cousin to the great Christmas tradition of “Nine Lessons and Carols”, Advent Carols begins the Christmas story with music of anticipation.
We look forward to hearing the choir sing one of Stanford’s lesser known anthems, Be merciful unto me, O God - a setting of Psalm 57; and we will enjoy tenor Kim Worley singing excerpts from The Messiah, alongside the great Advent hymns, O come, O come Emmanuel, and Lo, he comes with clouds descending.
Among the many services at Christmas, the choir’s particular pleasure is the great tradition of the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols.
The service had its origins in 1880, in Truro Cathedral, Cornwall, at a time where during the 1870’s, carols were becoming more and more common in worship, and many new and re-discovered old carols were being published.
The service in Truro took place at 10pm, and was designed to lure people out of the pubs and into the churches - the Bishop of Truro was concerned about excessive drinking at Christmas!
When a few years later this Bishop was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury, the idea and form of a carol service on Christmas Eve began to spread in popularity.
In 1918, Rev’d Eric Milner-White, as newly installed Dean of King’s College Cambridge, thus established an annual tradition which has been broadcast by the BBC every year since 1928, and has become synonymous with Christmas.
The nine bible readings tell stories from Genesis, the prophesies of a Messiah, and the story of the birth of Jesus.
These are interspersed with a selection of carols, from ancient texts to newly composed music.
At this year’s Carols service at St Peter’s Cathedral, every single carol the choir will sing was composed or arranged after 1950, and indeed at least half were written after the year 2000, and yet you will undoubtedly feel that the music feels familiar, because good Christmas music always feels like it has just always been there!
I think this is a strong testament to the living, active, and constantly invigorated world of church music, which, though some may see it as a stuffy old-fashioned thing, is very much alive and looking forward. Of course, our music is part of a tradition that dates back a thousand years, and it’s one of the great joys that such a tradition can be simultaneously so ancient yet so fresh and rewarding.
We hope to see many of you at our service of Nine Lessons and Carols, on Christmas Eve, December 24th at 7pm.
In between Advent Carols and Christmas Carols, there are a couple of events worthy of mention amongst our regular services.
New Choral Premiere - Sunday 4th December 6pm
The first is a special service celebrating the 30th anniversary of the admission of women to the priesthood in Adelaide. For this service, the Music Foundation has supported the commissioning of a new choral work, by Adelaide composer Rachel Bruerville.
“Make way” is based on a text from Isaiah 43, specially selected by our Canon Precentor Rev’d Jenny Wilson: “Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old…” It will be premiered by the Cathedral Choir during this special evensong on Sunday 4th December, at 6pm.
Organ Scholar mini-recital - Sunday 11th December, 5:30pm
Our four young high-school organ students, receiving organ lessons on scholarship from the Music Foundation, will be presenting a short recital prior to Evensong on Sunday 11th December, at 5:30pm. These new organists, coming to the end of their first year of lessons, will be joined in this short concert by Cathedral Organ Scholar Marco Callisto.
Please come along to hear Adam, Elaine, Yongjian, Luca, and Marco, to support them and celebrate their work and development.
Opera meets Organ! - Save the Date!
Tickets for the first recital of our concert series next year will be on sale soon. The latest incarnation of the fabulous "Opera meets Organ!" will feature cathedral Director of Music Anthony Hunt, renowned tenor Andrew Goodwin, and guest soprano Jessica Dean, singing and playing favourite repertoire from the opera.
Please reserve the date in your diaries - Sat 4th March, 2023, 2pm, and watch out for further updates about our exciting Concert Series for 2023.